In recognition of Poetry Month, and to celebrate our treasure trove of Orcas Island poets, Orcas Issues is pleased and honored to offer daily poetry during April.

Barefoot Burglar Tryptich

Part I – The Kid

I know I live in a trashy trailer
Mom yells at me
I yell at her

Outdoors, it’s big and green
and hard and cold
But no one yells at me
I feel my legs grow strong

Why am I here?
Why am I big? Is it to be cut down?
Or to reach for the sky?

Is the sky safe?
Can I hide in the woods?
Or will I crash in the trees

The trees are bigger than me
Until they are chopped down

Or eaten alive
By tree beetles
Weakened from the inside.

But while I live
I’ll reach for the skies

And play with other people’s toys

Part II – The Criminal

I am not stuck here
I am daring
I am doing wrong

I release myself
I am a runaway – I run
I am a fugitive – I fly

People know that I’m alive

I make my mark
I’ve flown in the sky
Now Mom wants to talk to me

Your bikes, your planes, your homes, your boats
Your toys are my playground
Are my stage
Are my home for this homeless boy

People thrill
To the role I play
The gift I bring
Of defiance to rules
My bold “no” to your easy “you must”
My challenge to soft security

The gift we both crave
I who never had it
You who enjoy it so selfishly

Part III – The Prisoner

This cell is tight
I am young, strong, big
I want to move

Beyond my pain
I must pay
Are there work camps in prison?
I’d like that

Powering up chain saws
Vaulting rocks into rivers
Or piling them to the sky
That old devil sky

I heard once there’s a work farm
Would I like that?
The land must be big

I’d be breaking dirt from above
Slogging through mud

Before they pile it on me
For the last time

I just want to live
To ride wild horses that are bigger the me

And know the thrill of jailbreak.

© Margie Doyle

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